Tree work happens across a narrow window. Once nesting season is properly under way there are real restrictions on what can be done, so April is busy for arborists and the phone reflects it. Tree surgery waste comes off a job in three quite different forms, and only one of them is a natural fit for a container. Our Chorley skip hire service covers the parts that are.
Check the tree before anything is cut
Two things to establish first, and both of them are cheaper to check than to get wrong.
The first is whether the tree is protected. Preservation orders exist across a good deal of this area, and any tree in a conservation area has protection regardless of whether there is an order on it. Work on a protected tree without consent is an offence, and ignorance is not much of a defence. The council will tell you in a phone call.
The second is nesting. It is an offence under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 to damage or destroy an active nest, and the main nesting season runs from roughly March through to August. That is why serious tree work concentrates into the winter and early spring, and why a competent arborist will check a tree before starting rather than after.
Brash is volume without weight
The small stuff, the leafy branch ends and thin material, is what comes off in the greatest quantity and it is almost entirely air. A single mature tree produces a mound of brash that looks like it needs three skips and would compress into a fraction of one.
This is the material that really should not go in a container. Any arborist worth using brings a chipper, and chipping on site turns that mound into a few barrow loads of woodchip. The chip can frequently stay on site as mulch for borders, which costs nothing and saves buying bark later.
If you are getting quotes and one includes chipping and another proposes filling skips with whole branches, that difference is worth asking about. Skips full of uncut brash is money spent carrying air.
Timber is worth something
The trunk and the larger limbs are the opposite of brash. Dense, heavy, and with a value rather than a cost attached.
Hardwood in reasonable lengths sells or gives away readily for firewood, and there is rarely any difficulty finding someone locally who will take it, often collecting it themselves. Ash, oak and beech in particular go quickly. It needs a season or two to season before it burns properly, which is worth mentioning to whoever takes it.
What we would say is that big timber is a poor use of a skip. It is heavy, it does not stack, and it will reach the weight limit of a container while leaving most of the volume unused. Our page on skip size versus weight limits covers why.
Any timber that is diseased is a different matter and should not be moved around or given away, because moving infected material is how tree disease travels between sites. That is a conversation to have with the arborist rather than a judgement to make yourself.
Stumps are where the skip earns its keep
This is the part of a tree job that suits a container properly. A ground out stump produces a mix of chip, root material and a considerable quantity of soil, and a dug out stump comes up as a solid mass with soil packed through the root plate.
Soil is what makes this heavy. A root plate that has come out of the ground carries a great deal of earth with it, and around Chorley that earth holds water. Knock off what you reasonably can before loading.
For stump material and the general tidying up that follows a tree job, our garden waste skip hire service is the right fit, and a clean green load is one of the better things that comes through our gate. Our environmental and recycling page explains what happens to it.
Keep the load clean
Tree jobs frequently coincide with other garden work, and the temptation is to use the same container for everything. Green waste composts properly only if it is nothing but green waste.
Fence panels, old concrete post feet, plastic sheeting and rubble from a wall that came down with the tree all belong in a separate pile. It costs nothing to keep two heaps as you work and it makes a real difference at our end.
Sizing and access
For stump and root material a 4 tonne midi skip is often enough given the weight involved. Where a larger clearance is happening alongside the tree work, an 8 tonne builders skip gives you the room. Our guide to choosing the right skip size covers the general approach.
Access needs thinking about, because arborists need room to work and to drop material safely, and a container in the wrong place is an obstacle rather than a help. Talk to whoever is doing the tree work about where they want it before you fix the delivery.
We cover this area regularly, running Coppull skip hire and Charnock Richard skip hire jobs alongside Chorley.
Ring us on 01257 752399 once you know whether the stumps are coming out, because that decides most of it. Our contact page is there if the tree surgeon would rather arrange it directly.
